The United States is working with regional allies to tackle security challenges in Asia related to technology transfers between Russia and North Korea, according to a report by Reuters.
Speaking to the news outlet while attending a nuclear terrorism conference in Bucharest on Wednesday, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, Bonnie Jenkins, said the Biden administration is collaborating closely with Japan and South Korea to address their reservations regarding a recent strategic alliance between Moscow and Pyongyang.
"We don't have anything definitive … in terms of nuclear technology going from Russia to the DPRK, but obviously we have an overall concern about the developing relationship between the two countries," Jenkins explained during an interview.
"Not only because of what technology could be transferred, but also just the growing relationship and the fact that the DPRK is assisting Russia, not only with their developing defense industrial base, but also obviously with the 10,000 troops or so that are in Russia right now," she continued, citing recent revelations by the Pentagon identifying North Korean ground forces currently deployed alongside Russian personnel near the Ukrainian border.
In addition to dispatching reinforcements to fight Ukraine’s armed forces, the dictatorship has been accused by Western intelligence agencies of supplying the Kremlin with at least 13,000 shipping containers of military materials, including up to 8 million artillery shells.
Last month, North Korea successfully launched its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile to date, though there has been no evidence of direct Russian involvement in the incident.
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